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April 17, 2004
An explosion of persuasive technology
In 1997 my lab team and I started listing examples of computing systems designed to change people's beliefs and behaviors. At one point we believed we had listed over 80% of all existing examples, so we stopped gathering examples and moved on to other projects (like our web credibility research). Today it would be difficult--if not impossible--to list even 5% of the existing examples of persuasive technology. So much has changed in so little time. Using computing technology to influence people was once a rarity; today, using technology to influence people is commonplace.Posted by at April 17, 2004 08:41 AM
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Comments
Ok, ok... nothing like starting off with a sweeping generalization about the Web :-) - I happen to agree, however, that the Web *does* change behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs. But I don't think that was the original purpose... like all good tool-users, we have taken a technology that was designed for one purpose and re-worked it so that it satisfies us on multiple levels. Our perceptions of other areas of knowledge has changed thanks to the Web. Think of communication, healthcare, dating, and politics - can you imagine these things without the Internet now? The almost instantaneous access to information has changed our behavior completely, and now some of us are using the Web to change the behavior of others.
Posted by: Joshua Solomon at June 6, 2005 11:05 AM